


Favorite

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27209041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Klinger just doesn't scheme for escape. Sometimes he schemes to be near his favorite person.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Favorite

“Klinger! What are you  _ doing _ !?!” Even drunk, Hawkeye Pierce made sure to whisper. If he was really seeing what he was seeing… 

“Nothing to bother you, sirs. I do it all the time.” 

“What!?” BJ whispered, too - but there were a lot of fierce emotions bound up in the syllables.

“He  _ lets _ you?” This was Hawk again. 

“No. He sleeps real heavy. He doesn’t know.” 

The two Captains looked at each other, then looked at the Corporal who was braving death and dismemberment - or, at least, being rumpled, spindled, and mutilated - all for… what? 

But those big, dark eyes just asked to borrow a cup of mercy. He wasn’t hurting anything, after all. 

“You just duck under, huh?” Hawk asked, pointing to Winchester’s arm. 

Klinger nodded happily. 

_ You’re braver than anybody thinks, kid. That’s for damn sure _ . 

“Beej, I think I drank too much to see a whole lot of anything. You?”

BJ had been following Hawkeye’s lead since he’d arrived in Korea. He sounded some strange combination of impressed, concerned, and wondering as hell, but all he said was, “Goodnight, Klinger.”

*** 

When Hawk woke and made his way to the mess tent, Maxwell was long gone from Charles’ side - and he seemed to almost expect that the Captain would sit beside him. 

“You’re gonna try to talk me out of it, huh, sir?” he asked, trying to persuade his tastebuds that some very weak tea wasn’t just colored hot water. 

“No - wish you’d said you were so sneaky, though. We could’ve used your help with pranks when he first showed up. Unless you were too smitten even then?” 

Klinger just sighed. 

“How didn’t I notice!? You know, you’re kind of shiny eyed today - is that because of where you spent the night?” 

Klinger shoved at him, but mumbled, “Maybe.” 

“I _ have  _ to know how you’re working this. How did it happen?” 

Klinger looked around, nervous. 

“Your tent then. C’mon. Dad sends me icewine tea.”

Klinger accepted the gentle bribe of tea - with maple syrup as sweetener - and Hawk reaffirmed his long-held opinion that the kid was pretty adorable. 

“Winchester, huh? That’s some interesting taste, Klinger.”

“You ever see something in a window and it’s so perfect you can feel it under your fingers even with the glass between you, sir? And you look and you hope you see a tag on it because just maybe you could scrape the dough together if you picked up an extra shift or had a good night at dice? But stuff without a tag… you know better than to ask, right? You can’t afford it - not ever. The Major’s like that. But I have to walk past the window every day anyway and I guess I just thought…”

“You could try him on?” Hawk teased, thinking of Charles’ arm slung across that slender frame. 

“You trying to tell me he doesn’t look great on me?” 

Hawk whistled his appreciation for such boldness. “Anyone would - but I think it’s more you on him with the height difference. So, breaking in - how do you manage that?” 

Klinger gave him a pained look. “You don’t think I’d take anything, do you, sir?”

_ Just Charles _ . “Of course not. I just want to know what I’ve been sleeping through.”

“I’m from Toledo, sir. I can pick better locks than that with a bobby pin.” 

“Okay. That’s getting  _ in _ .” Someday he really had to make Klinger tell him more about his Toledo adventures. From all accounts, he’d led an interesting life. “What about getting out in the morning?”

“Winchesters aren’t early risers, but I am.”

“And OR?” They got woken up in the middle of the night plenty, but since Klinger hadn’t ended up on a stretcher, he must have an escape plan. 

“He keeps under his cot cleaner than you sirs. I just roll under and then follow you out.” 

It was a cute image, Hawk thought: the Corporal re-emerging with dust bunnies and his dark hair and a spring in his step. 

“And the arm thing?”

“What arm thing?”

“You were rubbing his arm.”

Klinger ignored the leer. “Everyone likes that, right? Helps him sleep I think. He gets nightmares same as everybody here.”

Well, now Hawk was plain jealous. Charles had someone to keep him warm and ensure his peace after their terrible work - and he didn’t even know about it! 

“And you don’t sleep.” It wasn’t a question. 

“Maybe not all the way,” Max agreed. 

“That’s not healthy, Klinger. Not working as hard as you do.” 

“I didn’t sleep in my bunk either. Please? I’m less scared this way.”

“Because you’re too busy being something else?” The leer returned. 

“Maybe a little?”

“Klinger!!”

For this, he just received a can-you-blame-me? look that made him laugh and laugh! 

*** 

Hawk hadn’t uncovered Klinger’s secret alone, so he wasn’t the only one concerned about it, either. The other half of the duo of discovery was taking a much more direct route, however, having taken the elbow of a white-coated Winchester and pulled him toward the room that served as their lab. 

“Hey, can I borrow you for a consult?”

Charles looked pleased at being selected, but confused. “I was not aware we had any difficult cases in post op.”

“We don’t. Don’t worry, your observation skills haven’t atrophied. This case is up and moving around.”

BJ told it quick and basic and saw Charles - maybe for the first time ever - without any shields. His blue eyes, Hunnicutt thought, even seemed to soften, infused with light. He thought he’d seen that color once… hiking maybe? A plant in the rain that had been too small and too fragile to pick, so he’d just sheltered it with his hand for a closer look to tell Peggy about it after. 

“How... ah, how long has this been happening?”

“I don’t know, but I thought you should know.”

“You disapprove?” Charles knew that Klinger’s costumes were far from Hunnicutt’s favorite thing. 

“Does it matter?”

“It would not guide my actions, p’raps, but I should like to know.”

_ Huh _ . It seemed Charles respected him after all, California origins or not. That being the case, BJ gave the most honest diagnosis he could. “Charles, you are the loneliest person I’ve ever met. If he’s your chance to change it, I will personally decorate the mess tent for your wedding.”

A smile tugged at his mouth. “And Max?”

Caught, BJ nodded. “It took me some time to get used to the dresses, sure. When I did, I figured out what’s in them - a real scared kid that never should have been scooped up and sent here. And that kid’s epitome of romantic ambition is just laying beside you and listening to you breathe.”

Charles heard something in his voice. “You used to do as much with your Peg?”

“I never fired a weapon outside basic training. Barely did it there. But I think I could for that. To wake up and sed her hair on the pillow,” the other doctor admitted.

“You and your wife… that is a  _ legal _ match, Hunnicutt.”

“Sure. And Klinger’s scared to death. And you’re his favorite thing this side of the Pacific. As far as anybody knows, you’re just a security blanket. They say otherwise, let Hawk and I worry about it.” He was pleased to see Charles extend his hand - a gentleman’s thank you. It touched him enough to lead him to add, “That kid’s crazy about the way you talk, you know.”

“How do you know all this?”

“The whole camp knows. Most of them think Klinger’s pretty. He’s a lot prettier when he’s listening to you.” 

***

Maxwell was tired after guard duty - but it was a happy, limber tired. He looked forward to getting out of his dusty clothes and into something equal parts comfortable and pretty - and then (barring choppers) sleeping through reveille. If he closed his eyes tight and tucked the covers in just as tightly, he could pretend that the warmth was a pair of strong arms surrounding him. He was halfway out of his jacket when he jumped - and thought he might not  _ need _ to imagine it. What he might need were the kind of pills Sidney packed in his doctoring bag… because this was obviously a hallucination. 

“M-Major?” 

“I would beg your pardon for the unconventional method of entry, but I have it on good authority that you are no stranger to opening locked doors, yourself.” 

Max was impressed - the Major had  _ broken in _ !? But then his face crumpled a little as he realized what had come to pass. Well, best he paid for what he’d enjoyed, then, he figured, because he wasn’t going to get to enjoy it again. All good things and all that. 

“I, uh,...” he fidgeted, sighed. Stupid officers. He shouldn’t have let them see.  _ But why’d you have to go and kick me off the one safe little shelf I had, sirs?  _ It was  _ their  _ tent, though. Probably they just didn’t want him around anymore than Laverne had, than the other soldiers did. He swallowed hard, hurting. “I’m sorry, Major. You can put me on report or whatever you think is right, sir.”

As the words sank in, Charles felt perfectly horrified. Klinger hadn’t just been risking his wrath. How often he forgot the great gulf between officers and enlisted! He wasn’t regular army, like Potter or Margaret, so the whole thing sometimes felt like finding oneself at a costume party… with mortar fire.  _ You brave, reckless little comfort-seeker… _ “I am working off of secondhand information, Corporal. How can I possibly choose the proper course when I do not know what you did?” 

This was said lightly, teasingly - but Max thought he was being mocked, and humiliation in front of the one person (outside the Colonel) that he really looked up to was hard to bear. But he’d made this bed… or at least climbed into it. 

If his eyes burned a little from the sudden start of tears… well, they’d have to wait ‘til he got Winchester the hell out of here. He wasn’t going to cry in front of the Major. “I’m sure you know enough, sir. It was the wrong thing. I could give you all the reasons, but they wouldn’t matter to you. So could we skip to the part where you yell at me with those long four letter words you like or punch me or whatever? I’m tired,”  _ and I’m scared and I’m losing the one damn thing that helped me out,  _ “so, can we get it over with so I can sleep?” 

“Maxwell, we are  _ friends _ ! I am a doctor! You think I could lift a hand to harm you!?” This wasn’t going at all like he’d envisioned. 

“Well, if you want to protect your hands, I can point you toward half a dozen people who’d do it for you with a smile.” Glumly, he thought that they probably wouldn’t even charge the man. 

Charles had known Maxwell was scared. He’d imagined that his fears arose from seeing mangled bodies and enduring shelling… but perhaps they did not end there.  _ I will look after you,  _ he promised, silently.  _ Protect you.  _ He’d never guessed that the first person Maxwell might need protection from was  _ him _ . 

“I think there has been a misunderstanding here, Corporal.”

Klinger’s shoulders climbed up as if to make a wall. Charles had seen the man in many looks - from Scarlett O’Hara to dress browns - but he couldn’t remember ever seeing him  _ sheepish _ . “No misunderstanding, sir. I knew it was wrong. I just… well, you know me. I can’t pass up a chance. I’m sorry, Major.”

“That you got caught?” Charles teased. 

Klinger shrugged. “Yeah, mostly." By his reckoning, he hadn't been hurting anything. "It was… nice, sir. I know you probably don’t want me to say so, but it was.”

Charles lifted the edge of a blanket that he knew Klinger had created. It was, though he didn’t know it, single stitched - which meant it was very heavy. His long fingers - Klinger had watched them dance in OR - felt his way over the fabric. “Show me?”

The light lilt at the end - the way the words rose to indicate a question… it gave the Corporal hope. But he was afraid. “Major, what’d be the point? It’s done with. I apologized. You wanna see me cry over losing you?” His voice grew soft, rough with the tears beneath it. “You’re not that kinda guy, sir. You wouldn’t,” he swallowed something, hoped it wasn’t  _ just _ the very little pride he had, “wanna see me humiliated, would you?”

Charles had never seen love and fear struggle in a pair of sin-dark eyes before - and here it was happening right before his eyes - over  _ him _ . His pulse fluttered in a way he hadn’t experienced in years - a pleasant little acceleration that sent gentle sparks from his elbows to his fingertips. His hands conveyed a sudden wish to his brain - and it was on the edge of becoming a demand. They wanted to settle on Max’s thin waist. He’d never really looked before, but the man bordered on delicate and he wanted to map his way down those olive army fatigues and pause on the flare of his hips. He made his voice as honest and as gentle as he knew how. “Maxwell, I do not wish to humiliate you.  _ I wish to hold you _ .” 

Realization changed his eyes again and Max came forward on hesitant and nearly soundless feet. Charles’ hands got their wish, fingers forming a hoop around a too-slender waist. When he looked down at his arms he thought of more biding circles: rings. It was too soon - far too soon - to think such a thing, but he couldn’t help it. No one had ever felt so right in his arms. 

That night, Charles got to feel why he’d been sleeping so well. Maxwell stroked up his arms as he lay inside them. His touches were hesitant at first, and he looked up often to read the Major’s face, but then his fingers moved to the back of his neck, played in his hair. And BJ had been very right about the voice thing. Maxwell might have been initially reluctant to believe that Charles could want him, but when the Major praised him he brightened and shined - and he believed. 

After that, Max never had to sneak into the Swamp again and Charles ceased to be the only member of the 4077th who slept well so very far from home.

End!

  
  
  



End file.
